At 30, Mr. Chow Keeps Chugging

One night last week, if you’d found yourself on the eastern end of 57th Street in Manhattan, become intrigued by a few serious-looking paparazzi at the entrance of Mr. Chow, and bluffed your way past two women with clipboards, you might have been able to figure out what you’d gotten yourself into—the 30th-anniversary party for the restaurant—with just a little deduction. Your first clue could have been the disco-heavy D.J.’ing (Ring My Bell, Electric Avenue) or the period details (pinky rings, unbuttoned shirts, dyed bobs) of more than a few male guests. Or it could have come from a quick architectural scan.

Part of Michael Chow’s mini-chain of Chinese restaurants, the 57th Street branch looks like a perfect specimen of splashy late-70s décor. The split-level space is laid out like a compact dance club, designed for drama and people watching. On the ground floor, at the bottom of a wide, ego-building flight of stairs, sits a mirrored and lacquered dining room, which is edged by black banquettes. Perched at street level is a dark alcove bar, decorated with a large, klieg-light-like lamp and a vase of lilies. But if, the other night, you still weren’t sure what you were doing there, you could have headed to a cluster of little black doors and entered the one to the ladies’ room to observe a flashy marble coffee table and a huge chunk of display quartz. Or you could have followed Michael Chow, as I did, behind another black door to the quiet of a cramped utility closet.

There, wearing a peach-colored corduroy suit and his usual black, thick-rimmed round glasses, Chow seated himself on an overturned bucket to discuss the history and philosophies of the dining room. “When we first opened, 30 years ago,” he began, “I think Hubert Givenchy said, ‘Oh, this is like a jewelry box.’ The [Mr. Chow] we just opened in South Beach, three months ago, that’s a huge restaurant. Very, very beautiful. We have a chandelier in there like 125 feet. But when we first opened [in New York], this was adequate. It was in a sort of off-beat location, between Second and First [Avenues], a destination. No one is passing by. At lunchtime, there’s no one here. Well, I want them to come to me.”Buoyed in the beginning by the reputation of the first Mr. Chow, which opened in London in 1968, the 57th Street location has attracted several waves of clientele, but it’s best known for a heyday in the 80s. “It started with fashion,” Chow said, “then evolved to one of the great art scenes, with Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, all the names—Julian Schnabel, Keith Haring, et cetera. Then, the [90s were] all the rap music, all the hip-hop, they all came.

“The people in our restaurant, they really love it. But generally speaking—I can guarantee you—all children love it. First of all, they like the space, it’s very harmonious. And also the food is very true, not exaggerated [or] over-designed. You need harmony, you know, so you can come back to eating it all the time. So you get addicted. Think about tomorrow, think about the future. I left China when I was very young, and I always wanted to make Chinese people and Chinese culture—which I feel is the greatest in the world—respected, to perfect it, and I’ve sort of made myself self-appointed ambassador. At the moment, you have Nobu representing Japan, you have Cipriani representing Italy, and Jean-Georges representing France, and Mr. Chow, internationally speaking, representing China.”

Back outside the closet, things were functioning relatively harmoniously. Some of the older partygoers had begun to dance to the disco, and waiters circulated trays with simple piles of unexaggerated appetizers (fried lumps of lobster, condiment-less potstickers, shrimp toast, and Mr. Chow’s famous orange-colored skewered chicken with peanut sauce). There were a few glimmers of late-70s decadence—some gender transgression, when a man stormed into the ladies’ room and used it (to the revulsion of socialite Olivia Palermo)—and of 80s glamour, in the form of Brooke Shields and Cindy Adams. Bill Cunningham,The New York Times’s longtime fashion photographer, took pictures, with film. But most of the restaurant’s famous regulars failed to show up for the reunion.

It was the young guests, such as Terence Koh (an artist known for, among other things, gilding his excrement) and fashion designers Thakoon Panichgul and Erin Fetherston, who added some old-time edge. And a few of them, it turned out, also had some history with the restaurant. “I haven’t been to this location, but I’ve been a lot in Tribeca and Los Angeles,” said Fetherston, who’s a friend of China Chow, Michael’s daughter. “China is such a sweetheart. Of course everyone in the restaurant knows her, and we get the most amazing dining experience. Oh my god! China knows how to order everything. But that Peking duck is incredible.”

Actress Mischa Barton, wearing a floor-length, 70s-style floral dress, was another long-time Mr. Chow enthusiast. “I love this place,” she said. “When I was growing up, [I’d go to] this location. Now that I’m older, I live right near the other one, downtown. I love the chicken lettuce cups and the seaweed salad and the chicken sticks with peanut sauce, and, like, everything. I get everything. You have no idea. It’s an obsession! I dream about the chicken lettuce cups. I dream about the chicken sticks. It’s crazy. I get a craving for it.”